


Beyond the Ring

by julponey



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alice is definitely a type-A horse show mom if I ever saw one, Alternate Universe, Everything is centered around horses ok, F/M, Fluff, Horseback Riding, Horses, Romance, Slow Burn, Veronica's parents own the barn, all that good stuff, as well as mystery, because my bughead heart needs it, bughead - Free form, bughead - Freeform, there will be a lot of sweet fluffy moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:03:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11171931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julponey/pseuds/julponey
Summary: [The entire Riverdale gang in a horse-world AU]While still dealing with the lingering effects of a riding accident, Betty Cooper finds a horse who has as many demons as she does. Jughead, the mysterious stable hand takes an interest, and with his help, she works to overcome her demons.





	1. Chapter 1

The smell of hay, dust, and fresh pastures found her before she had even reached the end of the long driveway. Betty leaned out her head out the open car window and inhaled deeply, a small smile settling on her lips. It took a couple more turns down the dirt path before the stables came into view.

Riverdale Farm consisted of a small parking lot, two large dark oak barns, multiple arenas for a variety of disciplines and over five hundred acres of pastures and trails. It was a second home to Betty Cooper, despite the trials and tribulations she had encountered here. It was early still, and there was only one other car in the lot. Betty parked beside a shiny black Audi and shook her head, amused. No matter the weather, she had never seen the car flecked with dust or mud, remaining magically clean despite the elements. She climbed out of her Honda, not missing the mud along the bottom of the body and dust on the back windshield. She didn’t mind it though. Her mother used to pester her to wash her car before going to the stables every day, trying to achieve the same spotlessness the Audi displayed daily. Betty had managed to negotiate her way out of it--it didn’t make sense, cleaning a car just before driving through mud for appearances--and looking at it now gave her a sense of freedom and defiance.

As she approached the closest barn, a couple horses stuck their heads out of their stall windows and perked their ears at her. They looked familiar, belonging to one of the many boarders at the stables. Betty dug around in her pockets, digging up a couple treats to offer them. Their soft noses tickled her palms as they lipped up the remaining crumbs, and Betty chuckled at the tickling sensation. With a last scratch under their jaws, she walked around and entered the barn. She immediately spotted Dakota, a large black Friesian horse standing in the crossties. Which meant…

"Hey V?" Betty called out gently. A rustling came from the barn office and her raven-haired best friend appeared.

"Hi! Sorry, I was taking a call for my parents," Veronica explained as she pulled her hair up into a bun. "Something about a hay delivery. Who do you want to ride today?"

Betty hesitated before answering, "I'm ok with whoever, they're your horses."

Veronica huffed. "I thought we'd been through this, B. What’s mine is yours, ok? That means you can ride whoever you like. It's only fair."

Betty chewed her lip in thought, wondering if rehashing the conversation with her friend was worth it. She shook her head to herself and said, "Alright. Is Pembroke in?"

"Yes! I had one of the farm hands bring him in. He's in his stall."

Betty nodded and walked down the aisle, swinging into the tack room to grab a grooming kit before heading to Pembroke's stall. She peered over the door to find the massive bay Warmblood laying down, eyes fluttered closed and wisps of hay dangling from his lips loosely. The sound of the stall door opening startled him awake and he scrambled to his feet before peering at Betty curiously with a tilted head.

“Hey big guy,” she murmured gently, holding her hand out for him to smell. He reached his neck out and huffed hot air against her open palm. “How was your nap?” She ran a hand down his neck, trying to smooth out his mane that was ruffled and tangled with hay. He sighed deeply in response. In a fluid movement, she slipped his halter over his nose and led him out to the cross ties beside Dakota where Veronica was busy bent over cleaning out his hooves. “So how did you do at the show this weekend?”

“Oh Betty, it was so much fun! Dakota did so well! We got top of our class, of course.”

“Of course,” Betty smiled. She sometimes felt sorry for the other riders who competed in the local dressage shows. It was hard to top someone as graceful of a rider as Veronica. The $250,000 horse helped too, of course. But Veronica was one of the most talented riders in the state and she earned every ribbon awarded to her.  
As they fetched their saddles, Veronica fixed Betty with a particularly penetrating look. “You should come with me to next weekend’s show in Greendale. You can ride Pembroke in the jumping ring.”

Betty’s fist clenched around the leather she was holding. “You know I can’t do that, Ronnie.”

“If you just talked to your mom—”

“You know I’ve tried that. Leave it be, please.”

Veronica frowned and opened her mouth to say something else, but seemed to change her mind. The two girls finished tacking up in silence and led the horses out to the arena to mount.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a touchy subject. I just don’t think it’s fair,” Veronica said from atop Dakota as she watched Betty twist her blonde pony tail up under her riding helmet and adjust the chin strap from the ground. “Pembroke is a perfect horse to get back into competing with! And I don’t do showjumping, so someone needs to ride him.”

“Ronnie, you promised you didn’t buy him for me to ride!” 

“I didn’t! You know my parents have wanted to invest in showjumping for a while. I can’t help that it’s a perfect match,” Veronica smirked. Betty shook her head before lining Pembroke up to the mounting block and swinging into the saddle with ease. And people said that Betty was a terrible liar. 

As they warmed up in the ring, an easy conversation carried on between the two girls, ranging from university to family to the girls night they were planning later that day at Veronica’s house. Eventually the conversation came back around to horses and Riverdale Farms.

“So the sale on the hundred acres on the other side of the creek looks like it’s going to go through. Next is actually getting the cattle for Daddy. I don’t understand how investing in cattle makes sense for the farm, but Archie’s excited.” Veronica smiled at the thought of her boyfriend’s enthusiasm.

“I think it’s great that your parents want to open up Riverdale for different types of riders.”

“I wish, but it’s purely a passing interest for my father. Owning this place is just a hobby to them. Not that I’m complaining! I can’t imagine life without riding, or the friends it’s given me,” Ronnie says as she pulls Dakota up beside Betty and Pembroke, nudging her knee against her friend’s affectionately. “On the other hand, I really wish they would hire a barn manager! We have a whole team of stable hands without anyone to lead them, or organize the running of this place. My parents are far too busy to give this place the attention it needs, I’m trying to help out when I can, but still. It’s been six months since Geraldine quit without a word.”

Betty nodded. Riverdale Farms was a large stable, with over a hundred horses to be taken care of. Veronica had valiantly tried to cover the barn manager responsibilities to keep the barn running smoothly, but things still fell through the cracks. As time had passed, Betty had developed the suspicion that the Lodges had simply forgotten to replace the barn manager, other more-important business affairs taking precedent. “Shall we head out? Which trail do you want to take?”

“How about the North trail?” Veronica suggested as she reached down to swing the arena gate open and the girls set out, horses walking along contently side by side. 

“You know, I do realize that you always want to go out on that trail whenever I’m riding Pembroke. The only trail with jumps incorporated along the way?”

Veronica smiled. “I have no idea what you mean.”

They turned their horses to the left, heading past the second, larger barn as they went. As the horses ambled by, Betty caught sight of a dark head of hair and grey beanie from inside one of the stalls through the windows. She didn’t even notice when Pembroke slowed to a halt as she watched until Veronica called from up ahead, “Betty?”

The figure stopped moving around in the shadows, stepped closer to the light, and looked out the window, leaning easily against a pitchfork. Familiar blue eyes met Betty’s green briefly before sliding over to Veronica and Betty felt herself snap out of her trance. “Jughead,” Veronica greeted him simply before looking back to her friend in puzzlement.

“Sorry, just got distracted,” Betty said and her friend’s eyebrows raised with interest. They set out again for the trail in silence and it wasn’t until after a long canter through several empty pastures that Betty found herself speaking up, “I didn’t know Jughead was back. Where has he been?”

Veronica looked back at her, puzzled. “What do you mean? He’s been here the whole time. He had some issues with his family and took a bit of time off, but he also moved into the apartment up above the barn. So if anything, he’s been around more.”

“I haven’t seen him at all,” Betty said before chewing on her bottom lip. 

“Do you mean…”

“Not since the accident. I thought he had quit being a stable hand.”

Some internal struggle wrestled its way across Veronica’s face before she settled on saying, “You haven’t been here as often as before. Besides, Jughead Jones is like a shadow.”

The girls turned the horses down a trail that bordered empty pasture with a thin line of trees. Rays of sunlight bled through the green canopy, casting the horses’ coats in flecks of gold. Betty always enjoyed the easy way she and Veronica could slip in and out of conversation. The comfortable silence now allowed Betty’s mind to begin to work, cogs clicking and turning rapidly, recognizably. Veronica spied the thoughtful look on her friend’s face and instantly perked up.

“What are you thinking, B?”

“What if you hired Jughead as barn manager?”


	2. Chapter 2

Jughead had been a constant presence around the barn for several years, hired as a stable hand by Hermione Lodge after a mysterious meeting between her, Archie’s father, and Jughead himself. Despite this, he had remained elusive at the best of times. He had never been unfriendly, but no one seemed to know anything about him except that he had a mare named Twilight (and no, she wasn’t named after that thing with Edward Cullen, but after a famous drive-in movie theater). Even then, no one had ever seen him ride. The young riders considered Jughead to be the mystery of Riverdale Farms, and Betty couldn’t exactly deny it. It was like Veronica said--he was a shadow. However, she also knew from her friend’s accounts, he was an incredibly hard worker, a natural around horses, and was the most experienced stable hand at Riverdale. So Betty felt that Veronica’s reaction was a tad unwarranted, especially since they had just been discussing him.

“Jughead? Jughead Jones? The one we just saw? Human personification of an enigma? Man of the shadows? Beanie-wearing silent-type Jughead? That Jughead?” She gestured her hands wildly in her surprise, causing Dakota to get excited and prance about. Veronica quickly took her reins back in one hand and stroked her horse’s neck with the other, calming him with small shushes.

Betty smiled at her friend’s dramatics. “You make it sound like you know more than one Jughead. It isn’t exactly a common name. And he talks. It was just an idea.”

“ Barn manager is a big role…”

“You’re jumping to assumptions again. You know that he’s a hard worker, he knows this place inside and out. Plus you were just telling me in the arena how the younger stable hands defer to him already. And you know that he and Archie were friends growing up. If you need any judge of character, surely your boyfriend’s childhood best friend is a good indicator.”

“Maybe…”

Betty plays with the elastic of her gloves around her wrists. “He may not even want the job, V. It was just an idea,” she repeated, regretting speaking up at all. What had made her voice her idea in the first place? She turned the direction of the conversation to something Veronica could not fault her on--her concern for her friend’s well-being. “With the semester starting soon, you shouldn’t have to worry about running this place too.”

“You have to give him credit, he is always around. Not in your face around, but in-the-shadows around. And he does already live in the big barn so it’s not like he isn’t already on location. And he has no life, as far as I can tell.” Betty frowned at the last part but said nothing. She knew Veronica liked to think out loud, especially when there was no one else around to hear her except her best friend. Betty glanced around the wooded trail they were ambling down, needlessly checking to make sure no one else was around. “I’ll talk to my mom about it,” Veronica concluded before asking, “Do you want to cut out into the pasture up ahead and try the new jumps? Daddy just had them installed last month as part of the new cross-country course.”

Before Betty could reply, Veronica urged Dakota into a trot and headed on without her. Betty followed reluctantly, flexing her hands around the reins. She found herself grateful she was wearing her riding gloves despite the clamminess she felt from wearing the heavy cotton in August. They broke through the trees to find a flat field, recently mowed short, and a series of jumps scattered across in an organized chaos. “These aren't all cross-country jumps,” Betty thought aloud. There were several vertical and oxer jumps set up, the freshly painted white stripes blatantly standing out against the rest of the course. Betty’s stomach churned uncomfortably and her fingers curled into fists around her reins. Pembroke spied the jumps as well and picked up on Betty’s nervousness as excitement, throwing his head up and speeding up his stride.

“Come on Betty, why don't you just go over a few? Pembroke’s already excited!” Veronica said, pulling her horse to a stop to watch her friend ride ahead.

“Veronica--” Betty started before snapping her mouth shut. She knew better than try to dissuade the raven-haired girl when she had set her mind to something. Besides, why was she even resisting? She was a capable rider and it was just a few jumps--there was no crowd, no judges, no Alice Cooper, and no ice. No pressure.

She clucked her tongue and urged Pembroke into a canter along the perimeter of the field. She circled around once, sizing up the jumps before lining up the first set of verticals. They were small, low enough that Betty could have stepped over them if she was on the ground. Pembroke pricked his ears in interest and transitioned into a smooth canter. They went over the jumps easily. As Pembroke hopped the last of the triple, he gave a small buck of enthusiasm. It startled Betty and unseated her slightly and losing her right stirrup in the process as the horse made a sharp right towards one of the cross-country jumps installed. It was a ditch and fence, with twigs poking up from in between the wooden pallets. Somewhere, out of Betty’s peripheral vision, she heard Veronica gasp.

Instinct kicked in and Betty focused on regaining her seat. She managed to slip her foot back into its stirrup and found her balance in the saddle. She pulled on the reins, trying to bring Pembroke to a halt, or at least slow down so they could turn away from the jump but he pulled his head away from her contact, too excited to be deterred, causing the reins to rip through her gloves. A burning feeling on her palms caught a fragment of Betty’s attention and she winced internally at the feeling of raw open skin rub against the cotton of her gloves. And then—they were high in the air, arching over the tall obstacle.

This, Betty knew. The moments of flight where everything slowed down to where Betty could experience every millisecond. It didn’t matter that these were unfamiliar jumps or an unfamiliar horse. This moment never changed. Here, seemingly suspended in the air, she didn’t have to control anything. It felt like it could go on for infinity, but it was never long enough.

Then, ground. Pembroke’s hooves landed with a thud and Betty was jolted back to herself. She gathered the reins in her hands and brought Pembroke to a halt, needing to catch her breath. Glancing at her palms, she saw light patches of red blooming through the cotton. Peeling back one glove carefully, she saw that the reins being pulled from her hands had rubbed off the young scabs, leaving the cuts open and fresh once more.

“Betty!” Veronica called as she rode over. Betty quickly tugged her glove back down and picked her reins back up to hide the red stains. “Are you ok?”

Betty smiled her perfect-girl-next-door smile, ignoring the twinge of guilt for using it on her best friend. “Yea, I’m ok. He just got a bit excited.”

“I’m sorry, I know I haven’t been riding him enough, I should have—”

“Ronnie, it’s ok. He just took me by surprise,” Betty said with finality. She watched her friend’s perfectly arched eyebrows dip into a frown of concern and she amended her statement, feeling bad. “I just haven’t jumped anything that big since the accident, but it turned out ok! Nothing bad happened, I didn’t fall off. Pembroke’s a great horse, I just don’t know him that well so he took me by surprise.” Veronica had come up to sit side by side with Betty, so Betty nudged her leg against Veronica’s in affection. When it failed to soften her expression, Betty reached out and put a hand on her friend’s arm, carefully angling her palm to remain out of sight. She didn’t even flinch at the added contact to the injury.

Veronica offered a small smile, feeling comforted. “Let’s head back to the barn. It’s almost lunchtime and I’m starving. I’m sure the boys are too!” Veronica said, patting Dakota on the shoulder. The girls rode back, carrying a easy conversation the rest of the way. Betty didn’t spy Jughead anywhere as they rode back into the barn—not that she was looking for him, of course—and soon had him out of her thoughts as Veronica started offering up different fancy restaurant names as lunch options.

After putting the horses away in their stalls and changing out of their jodhpurs into fresh, dust-free clothes, Betty grabbed her gloves and walked to the nearest trash can just outside the feed room--full of plastic bags and torn burlap sacks. Her palms were still biting, now wrapped in fresh white bandages. It had been easy to just tell Veronica that the reins had given her rope burn as Pembroke had pulled them free of her hands. She chucked the gloves in, making a point not to look at the blood stains dried into the fabric. There was no way of getting them out now, and there were plenty more gloves at home. She spun on her heel and walked out of the barn to join Veronica in her sleek Audi to head off to lunch. She was in such a rush, to leave the gruesome reminder of her pain behind, that she didn’t even see Jughead’s mop of dark hair straighten up in the stall nearby and step out, reaching into the bin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thank you for the amazing response so far! :) I'm currently traveling throughout the Scottish Highlands and then to London so updates may be slow for a few days, but only through updates. I should have a good amount of time to write and edit during my bus and train rides :)


	3. Chapter 3

The cold air nipped at Betty’s cheeks and she huffed her breath into her scarf, trying to hold onto as much hot air around her face as she could. The frozen mud beneath gave way to hooves with a crunching sound. The grass along the edges of the arena looked silver, as the frost still hadn’t melted away. There was a steady trail appearing under the regular steps of horses. Betty sat on horseback as several stable hands carefully set up the jumps for her. There was a small crowd hovering along the edges of the ring, including Betty’s mother Alice and her sister Polly, Veronica, Archie, and Mrs. Lodge, and a few odd riders and barn employees.

Betty clucked and urged the horse beneath her— _Pembroke?_ —into a trot, she was struck with the sense of deja-vu. Her gut twisted uncomfortably but she didn’t stop, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She couldn’t pull her hands back, couldn’t move her feet, or try and slow the horse down. It was like she was no longer present in her body. Betty began to panic. She tried to look down, to see what horse she was riding. The mane in front of her kept changing—Pembroke’s chestnut, Dakota’s black, Sunny’s grey. _Sunny_. Her horse materialized solid and dapple-grey beneath her. Betty shook her head, not believing what she was seeing.

The February wind stung her eyes and she blinked the tears out of her eyes. Her body guided Sunny to line up with the jump in front of her, and Betty watched, helpless from within herself, as the events played out exactly as she remembered them.

Sunny approached the jump at a canter, ears pricked forward. Then, a stride before the jump, one of her front hoof slipped on a patch of ice. Murky rain water cupped in a dip in the mud, frozen solid overnight. Almost impossible to spot. Sunny’s head ducked down as her front legs splayed out sideways. Betty was thrown forward against Sunny’s neck by this. They were still moving forward, towards the jump. They were too close to turn away, it was upon them. Somehow Sunny managed to gather her legs enough to lift her front legs in the air and take off over the jump. But her head was still far too low, and Betty’s weight on her neck threw off her center of balance and they rolled head first into the wood and metal.

This was the opposite of jumping. Everything went far too fast for her to even try and register what was happening, let alone act.

Betty was thrown over Sunny’s head by the momentum, into the mess of wooden poles on the ground. She had somehow landed face up, and watched as her horse tumbled towards her, with a bar caught between her front legs, and a large bleeding gash along her forehead. Pure fear stared back from Sunny’s deep brown eyes. There was no time to move, to turn away, and Betty felt her body brace for the impact of a thousand pound animal crush her. She squeezed her eyes shut and….

Nothing.

A sickening crunching noise came from beside her and then a massive thud, paired with the clattering of metal jump holders tumbling over.

Then, silence.

Betty had no sense of time passing, her eyes still screwed shut, curled stiff on the ground. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours, days. All she felt was the pounding of blood and pain along her body. She didn’t even hear the soft voice beside her until she felt a hand on her cheek, another pressed gently along the inside of her right wrist.

“Betty? Betty!” the voice called softly. “Are you hurt? Can you move?”

Betty blinked her eyes open slowly. The first thing she saw were dark curls. Without thinking, she began to reach for them to touch, to see if they were real. She stopped herself as soon as her own hand came into view.

“Jughead?” she whispered. Jughead took her hand in his own hand.

“Can you move?” he asked again quietly. Betty nodded and Jughead placed her hand on his shoulder before slipping his arms underneath her and lifted her up. As he stood up straight, he angled his body so that her head rested low on his shoulder, only being able to see the plaid collar of Jughead’s shirt, his throat, and underside of his jaw. She regarded it for a few moments, swaying, before reality reached her.

“Wait, Jughead, where’s Sunny?” Betty said as she tried to make herself taller in his arms to look over his shoulder.

“Betty, no—” Jughead began as Betty managed to finally peer around him to the mess behind them.

People had gathered around the destroyed jump, making it difficult for Betty to distinguish between crowd and everything else. There was blood on the ground, a lot of blood. It didn’t seem to move, instead congealing to the frosty earth. It looked like jam, Betty’s brain provided helpfully. There were broken poles, large splinters of wood. As her gaze traveled across the ground, someone stepped aside— _Hermione Lodge_ — and Betty’s eyes found themselves looking right into a pair of familiar brown ones. Except the warmth was gone, and they were cold and empty now. A trickle of blood dripped into one eye, but it didn’t flinch or blink it away. Sunny’s eyes stared out blankly into nothingness. A long deep gash to the bone had appeared down her forehead and nose. Betty suddenly felt the strong urge to curl in closer to the warmth of Jughead’s chest, to stop looking, but she fought it to keep looking. Jughead had stopped walking away and stood still, back still turned away from everything, as if he couldn’t bring himself to move one way or another.

“Sunny—” Betty choked out as her eyes traveled and involuntarily found the source of the crunching sound she had heard from beside her. Sunny’s head lay at a perfect ninety-degree angle from her body, her neck snapped and broken in an ugly contorted way.

****

Betty awoke with a start.

“ _No!_ ” A sob broke out from Betty’s chest as she flung herself forward into a sitting position.She blinked, quick to orient herself to the sudden change of scene.

_Just another bad dream_ , she thought. “Just another bad dream, just another bad dream,” she chanted aloud when the darkness along the edges of her mind linger. The classic silver alarm clock that sat on her bedside table read 7:50am, ten minutes before her normal alarm clock would go off. Betty went to reach for her phone when she realized her hands were clenched and wadded up tightly in her sheets. She unbound them to find them bloody again. This happened every time she had the same nightmare at least once a week.

She got up and went to her bathroom to wash her hands and apply fresh bandages around her palms. When Betty walked back into her bedroom, she went to her drawers to pull out her clothes for church. Hands deep in the drawers, she paused, before reaching into the very back and pulling out a picture frame.

It was a photograph of Betty atop of Sunny, two blue ribbons hanging proudly from the horse’s bridle. Betty was grinning at the camera--not the polite girl-next-door smile, but a real one-- and it almost looked like Sunny was smiling too. Her ears were pricked towards the camera and she stood proudly. It had been one of their first shows competing together back when Betty was in high school.

Alice had removed all the pictures of Sunny from around the house after the accident, citing it causing unnecessary distress for Betty as the reason. Betty had managed to stash away just this one away for safekeeping. She traced her fingers over the glass wistfully and looked at it for a moment longer before her alarm began to ring and footsteps could be heard making their way towards Betty’s bedroom, indicating her mother’s imminent arrival. Betty slipped the picture back into the drawer, tucked behind her sweaters, and slammed the drawer shut just as her bedroom door swung open. Hurricane Alice had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, even though it's a definitely a bit darker than the stuff before it. I love reading your comments and reactions, so keep em coming!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I hoped you like the start of this so far... Let me know what you think!


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